


And Blood and Wine Were on His Hands

by lilybeth84



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mystery, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilybeth84/pseuds/lilybeth84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman is found hanged  in a red coat, a note addressed to Patrick Jane pinned to the front. Her striking resemblance to Teresa Lisbon is both disturbing and intriguing. As the CBI investigates this murder so inexplicably tied to one of their own, Jane finds himself closer to what he desires most, and Teresa Lisbon is forced to face her deepest fears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

He knew she was there before he opened his eyes, her scent on the summer breeze that whispered across his face.

Strawberries and sweat. He took in a deep breath and remembered how she would wake up from her naps on warm summer afternoons, crying because she was hot, hair damp and plastered to her forehead. He remembered how it felt to hold her, her warm baby skin pressed against his bare chest. And he remembered the taste of salt on his tongue after he kissed her.

He slowly opened his eyes. “Charlotte,” He whispered, feeling his mouth dry out and his heart constrict inside his chest at the sight of her.

“Hi, dad,” she said softly. 

“You’re here.” 

“I’m always here.”

Patrick Jane smiled. “Yes, you are.”

She shook her head, her long blonde hair swinging back and forth in waves. “Dad, you can’t keep doing this.”

He was startled at her tone. “Excuse me?”

She let out a sigh and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “It’s dangerous. The risk of overdosing while you’re alone….you should really listen to me.”

“Well, I’m your dad,” he replied with a lopsided grin. “I’m not supposed to listen to you.”

“There you go with the jokes again. Everything’s a joke with you!” She let out a sound of frustration and stalked by him to the bench under the trellis. She threw herself down and glared up at him.

“You’re all I have, Charlotte. Cut me some slack,” he said in irritation. “I come here because I miss you.” 

She sighed and slumped back against the bench. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“What!”

“I mean I’m not all you have. There are people in the real world that care for you; that want you to be happy. You don’t have to come here to find solace.”

“Oh really? And how would you know that?”

“Being a figment of your memory and imagination has special privileges—insights, if you will,” she said in a superior tone that sounded exactly like him, a smug smile on her lips. 

He was intrigued. “And what have you learned?”

She looked thoughtful. “That you are, for the most part, a kind man—except for when it comes to those who stand in your way of revenge. You are also arrogant and many find you insufferable, but those you work with love you, and you love them. But it doesn’t keep you from using them to achieve your means to an end—that being your quest for revenge. That is what drives you, and it causes a lot of pain."

“Ouch,” he said, putting his hand to his chest. He tried to take it lightly, but her words stung him deeper than he wanted to admit.

“The only one in your mind who, perhaps, means more to you than your revenge, is Teresa Lisbon,” she said, swinging her feet out in front of her. “But she is confused by you. Sometimes she thinks you care, but for the most part she sees herself as a chess piece in the game you play with Red John.”

He stared at her feeling the cold chill of shock wash over him. “She does not.”

She gave him a look of pity. “She does. You use her, which she doesn’t mind so much—but inside her, in a place so deep, the place where she hides her fear of her father and her lost childhood, she’s really afraid that she’s nothing without you.”

He didn’t know what to say…and for the first time since meeting her, he felt a twinge of anxiety, that what he saw wasn’t all there was to this wise child-crone he happened to visit under the influence of belladonna and LSD. 

“How would you know what Teresa Lisbon feels?” His voice sounded hostile to his ears, but he didn’t care. 

Her expression softened. “Because deep down inside, you know, daddy,” she said pointing at his chest. “And I am part of you.”

She got up from the bench, the sun creating a golden halo around her head. She looked like an angel from the paintings on the walls of Lisbon’s church.

“No one likes to feel like they are nothing,” she went on. “And you are so obsessed with the dead, you can’t see the living right in front of your face.”

“I—you’re wrong,” he protested. “Lisbon is a fine detective…” His voice faltered slightly and he swallowed hard. “And it’s not a game. Like I told you before, I do it for you and your mother!”  
Charlotte shrugged. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“I won’t have to, because it’s true!” he snapped, letting his anger cover his doubt. “And you don’t know Teresa!” 

“And you do?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “You need your imaginary daughter to tell you how she feels—you need me to tell you how _you_ feel!”

“You are not imaginary!” Patrick said sharply. “And I know exactly what I feel and what I am doing. I am in control!” 

“Right,” she scoffed. “Taking drugs is showing exactly how in control you are. You’re falling apart. I’m a hallucination in your head. I’m not real!” 

“You’re real to me!” He cried desperately, clenching his fists. 

“I’M DEAD!” she screamed, and the garden suddenly grew hostile, no longer the warm inviting place where anything was possible. His dream was collapsing around him, the drugs were wearing off. He dropped his eyes from Charlotte to the grass below—but it wasn’t grass anymore. It was the hard floorboards of his attic room at the California Bureau of Investigation.  
He looked up quickly, but she was already fading, and the last thing he saw before she disappeared was her eyes, a mirror of his own—full of grief and regret. 

“Charlotte,” he whispered, but it was only to his reflection in the window in front of him. 

She was gone. 

Suddenly feeling old and exhausted, he slumped back into his chair. His eyes rested on the belladonna leaves in the strainer on his desk. After a few seconds, he swiped the entire thing into the trashcan beside the desk. He pushed himself up from the chair and wearily climbed onto his bed. He closed his eyes and fell into a restless sleep. He cried out once in fear and then the tears came, falling down his cheeks and soaking the pillow beneath his head. 


	2. The Woman in Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A woman is found hanged in a red coat, a note addressed to Patrick Jane pinned to the front. Her striking resemblance to Teresa Lisbon is both disturbing and intriguing. As the CBI investigates this murder so inexplicably tied to one of their own, Jane finds himself closer to what he desires most, and Teresa Lisbon is forced to face her deepest fears.

Jane awoke to the ringing of his cell phone. His eyes felt heavy and swollen as he rolled off his bed and stumbled to the desk where he had left it the night before. After a few moments of fumbling around he found his phone and flipped it open.

“’Lo,” he croaked out, rubbing his hand across his eyes. He looked out the window to find it was still dark out.

“Jane?” Lisbon’s voice came over the line sounding tight. “Jane, I need you to meet me at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament over on Eleventh.”

“But It’s still dark, Lisbon,” he said stupidly. “And it’s not Sunday.”

“It’s not for Mass, it’s a case—just get over here, please?” The pitch of her voice went up a notch and he was suddenly wide awake. 

“I’ll be right there.”

There was a moment of silence and then he heard a click and she was gone. He looked at the time on his phone—it was not even five o’clock. With a sigh he grabbed his blazer from his desk and pulled it on. He looked wistfully at the electric tea kettle on the break room counter as he passed it by on his way out. There wasn’t even time for a cup of tea.

It was going to be a long morning.

As he drove through the dark downtown streets, he met only a few other cars on the road. There was something eerie about the darkness before the sun rose, almost like a snowfall, the world muffled and free from the hustle and bustle that was the lifeblood of cities like Sacramento.

When he pulled up to the cathedral he could see the flashing red and blue lights of police; the forensics team and the medical examiner’s vans were already parked in front. He flashed his CBI badge at the police guarding the line marked by yellow tape as he headed to the door, but they barely acknowledged him, their faces strained. He felt an uneasiness form inside him.

He had barely stepped inside when the metallic stench of blood filled his nostrils, almost making him gag. For a moment he was pulled back in time to the moment he walked through the bedroom door of his house in Malibu to find his wife and daughter dead, lying in pools of their own blood. His heart pounded loudly in his chest and he felt his vision go fuzzy.

“Jane?” 

Lisbon’s soft voice cut though the horror and he felt her hand touch his arm. Blinking the memory away, he found himself looking into her tired green eyes, the purple smudges beneath them magnified by the flashing lights filtering through the stained glass windows above. Over her shoulder he could see a swarm of people made up of police and forensics personal. His eyes rested on the thin form of Brett Partridge, who was pulling on some type of plastic suit. His face disappeared in a flash of white as the flash from a camera went off. 

“Jane?” Lisbon interrupted his thoughts. A wrinkle of worry formed between her eyebrows as she peered up at him. “You don’t look so good.”

“Neither do you,” he replied, pushing Partridge out his mind. But his attempt at humor fell flat. She didn’t even acknowledge it as an insult, so he went straight to the point.

”What happened?”

“I have to warn you—it’s—” She trailed off.

“Show me.” 

He followed her into the sanctuary and discovered why Partridge was wearing a plastic suit—he was literally going to be stepping into a bloodbath.

The water that poured from the white marble baptismal font into the octagonal pool below was crimson in color, and in the center of the pool, floated the lifeless body of a naked woman. Her eyes had been removed and her mouth was filled with water. 

“Okay. Interesting,” he said calmly, not betraying the way his stomach knotted up in horror at the sight. Lisbon didn’t even blink, and he immediately wondered how long she had stared at the dead woman before calling him.

“We don’t have an ID yet,” she informed him as they made their way around the pool to Partridge. “She needs to come out so the forensics team can get her prints, but I told Partridge he had to wait for you.” She glanced up at him. “He’s not too happy about it.”

“He never is,” Jane said grimly.

Partridge acknowledged their approach with condescending smirk.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Patrick Jane,” he sneered. “Come to work your little magic tricks, have you?”

Jane didn’t even blink. He gave Partridge his most arrogant smile and said, “Just doing what you can’t do, Partridge—solving murders.”

The smirk fell from Partridge’s face and anger flashed through his eyes. Lisbon stepped between them, placing her palm on Jane’s chest.

“That’s enough,” she ordered. He stepped back and looked down at her in surprise. “Jane, tell me what you see,” she muttered, shoving a pair of latex gloves into his hands. “And put these on before you touch something.” She glared up at Partridge and stalked over to the pool.

Jane snapped the gloves on with gusto and gave Partridge another smile. “I have to go do my magic tricks now.”

“Don’t take too long.” Partridge sneered at him, but it was Lisbon he followed with his eyes. 

_Interesting_ , Jane thought, following Lisbon. He filed that tidbit of information away for later examination, and crouched down to get a closer look at dead woman.  
Her face was white, drained of blood, surrounded by a halo of her hair—blonde tinged pink by the bloody water. The exposed parts of her body were lacerated with deep puncture wounds and he could see blackened skin—burned by something long and thin.

“She was found by one of the resident priests,” Lisbon said briskly. “That’s him with Rigsby.” She pointed across the cathedral to a youngish man with red hair, his hands being checked by Rigsby for traces of accelerant or other flammable residues. “Cho is up at the office with the parish administrator collecting the list of those who had access to the cathedral.” 

“Why was he here so early?” he asked, nodding towards the priest.

“He said he often comes in to pray when he can’t sleep.” She shrugged, avoiding eye contact with him. “Priests lead a lonely life.”

“Yes,” he mused aloud. He understood her loneliness—he felt it too—but unlike her he didn’t look to a god to find solace from it. Judging from the weariness etched in her face, she wasn’t finding much comfort in one either these days.

“An empty wine bottle was found next to her, and it’s being dusted for fingerprints as we speak.”

“That isn’t just wine,” Jane said doubtfully, eyeing the water. 

She nodded scrubbing the back of her arm over her tired eyes. “Yes. I know.”

He carefully picked up one of the woman’s hands. The fingers were manicured, but unpolished, and the wrist showed signs of being bound—by plastic ties. Together with the burns, the lacerations, the water…the unease within him began to itch unpleasantly.

“We need to find out how she died,” Jane said, taking his gloves off. “I don’t want to speculate, but—”

“Partridge!” Lisbon barked out, “We’re done. Get her out, now.” She looked at Jane through narrowed eyes. “You never speculate.”

Before he could respond, a sharp “caw!” rang out from above. He turned his eyes to the ceiling. From somewhere towards the front of the cathedral, a crow emerged and swooped down, landing on the wrought iron railing across from them.

Partridge, who had just stepped into the water, stumbled back in surprise, flailing his arms before sitting down hard on the marble floor. Jane was too startled to even smile. The bird turned his bright black eyes on them, watching the cursing Partridge as he angrily shoved off the hands of his aggrieved assistant who was trying to help him up. 

The crow rustled his glossy black feathers and cawed again. Moments later a second bird flew down, landing beside him. Then a third flew down, and another, and suddenly the air was filled with crows. They flew down from the vaulted ceiling towards the pool. 

“Everyone get down!” Lisbon shouted, and chaos broke out as police and forensics scientists alike dove for cover.

Jane automatically reached out for her hand without even being aware of it. He felt her gloved fingers grasped his wrist and jerked him away from the pool’s edge. They stumbled out the gate and she pulled him down between the nearest two pews. He heard her cry out in pain as she tripped over one of the kneelers and fell hard on her knees.

“Are you alright?” he asked, barely giving her a moment’s notice. He watched the birds land on the rail. 

“I’m fine,” she winced. “Where the hell did those birds come from?”

“They’re crows…and they were waiting,” Jane whispered feeling a sharp thrill of excitement as the cawing died down, and then ceased all together, silence falling over the room. He slowly stood up, Lisbon following him. 

“Jane?” There was a warning note in her voice.

“It’s okay, I know what I’m doing,” he assured her. The crows watched him approach but they did not move. Fascinated, he realized they were holding some sort of guard over the woman’s body…like they had been trained...

“It’s like something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds,” he heard Rigsby whisper loudly before Lisbon told him to hush.

One of the crows nearest to Jane hopped down onto the floor; he held something in his beak—something shiny and round.

“Hey, little fellow,” Jane murmured softly, crouching down. “What do you have there?”

The crow opened his beak and the object dropped out and slipped to the floor at Jane’s feet. It was a human eye, the connective tissue still attached.

“Well, that’s disgusting,” Lisbon remarked dryly. She turned to Rigsby and ordered him to call animal control. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity as people got back to work.

But Jane didn’t notice. He was still staring at the eye, his mind racing. “Caw!” cried the crow. He hopped over to Jane and tried to peck at his hand. “Yes, I know,” Jane said absently getting to his feet. “Lisbon?”

“—and I don’t care if he’s in bed,” Lisbon ordered into Rigsby’s phone, her ponytail whipping him in the face as she turned to Jane. “Tell him there are a hundred crows that are fucking up my crime scene, and I need them removed! Now!” She snapped the phone shut and shoved it back at Rigsby.

“Now’s as good a time as any to tell me what you’re thinking,” she said sharply. 

“You’re not going to like it,” he said truthfully, holding her gaze steadily. She was silent as she stared back, but it was only a matter of time— 

“You think its Red John.”

_She’s getting quicker._

“It _is_ Red John,” he corrected.

“Jane—”

“The stab wounds, the removal of clothing from the body,” he insisted, pointing at the body which was finally being removed from the water, the crows having been coaxed away with a stale bag of doughnuts a police officer had had in his car. 

“They’re all in Red John’s M.O. The bruising on her wrists says she was bound.”

To prove his point, he grabbed the arm of the nearest medical examiner. She looked up at him in shock, obviously unused to being manhandled at crime scenes by detectives. “What does the bruising tell you?”

She hesitated.

“Well, go on!” Jane said in exasperation. “It’s your job, not mine!”

She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and looked down at the dead woman’s wrists. “They look to have been made by plastic wrist ties,” she observed. 

Jane looked up at Lisbon triumphantly and the medical examiner gave him a sour look which he ignored. He was used to being despised by the doctors and scientists that surrounded him every day. They never understood they were on the same side.

“What about the burns and the removal of the eyes,” she argued. “Those are not Red John’s M.O.

“No, they aren’t.” He began to pace, feeling adrenaline course through him. “But something is happening here, Lisbon—something has changed the rules of the game.”

It did not escape him that he used the very word he had just denied was happening to his daughter in his hallucination the night before. She had been right—it was a game. But it didn’t matter. He was getting closer to the end. 

“I think you’ve lost it,” Lisbon said, the disbelief evident in her voice. “You’ve finally lost it.”

“Oh, hush,” he snorted in irritation. “I’m as sane as I was yesterday.”

She raised one eyebrow.

“Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but you have to trust me.” He was in front of her in two strides clasping her hands between his. “Please?”

But she suddenly pulled out of his grasp and her face hardened. 

“There is not enough evidence,” she said. “There’s no face—”

“There isn’t always a face.”

“—and he’s never used a religious place—”

“What does the place matter?” he snapped, and then felt guilty. “Why are you fighting me on this, Teresa?” he softened his voice, hoping to coax out an honest response, but she closed up even further, her arms wrapping around her body.

“I’m not.” She said stubbornly. “I just—"

Her phone rang, and he saw the relief on her face as she whipped it out of her back pocket and turned her back to him as she flipped it open. “Cho?” 

Feeling as though he had just been dismissed, he let out a deep breath of frustration. She was pulling away from him, but he couldn’t figure out why or where it was coming from. It seemed to happen more and more these days—since he’d returned from Las Vegas. 

He walked up the marble isle towards the front of the sanctuary. The sounds of the tech team faded into the background as he wandered through the doorway behind the pipe organ.  
 _Perhaps,_ he thought, _perhaps he didn’t draw the smiley face because he chose to drown her instead. The blood in the water, the empty wine bottle…._ He stopped and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. That meant something…but what?

The sharp scent of tannins from the communion wine mixed with the metallic tang of blood and stung the back of his throat. His nostrils flared and he opened his eyes. He also caught the faint scent of something sweet underneath—not the pleasant smell of bread or chocolate—but of something rotten. 

He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a door just behind the stairs to the pulpit. It was marked “Sacristy.” He ran the tips of his fingers over the dark panels, and cold fear trickled down his spine. The sacristy was where the wine and bread were kept. _Wine...._

He placed his hand around door knob and pulled.

The first thing he saw was a red coat.

The woman wearing the coat had been hanged from a rope tied to the wooden rafters above. Her hands were bound behind her back, which faced him. He looked down at her feet. They were bare except for her toenails which were painted red. His mouth went dry.

It was blood.

She was swaying gently from the door being opened, the wooden rafters creaking as the rope twisted her body around. As she turned, his eye caught a piece of paper pinned to her chest. He was reaching for it when the rope twisted her fully around and he glanced up at her face. 

He felt all the breath leave his body at once—as though someone had just punched him in the stomach. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move…his brain was the only functioning part of his body, and just for just a moment he wondered how she could be in two places at the same time. He had been trained in the art of illusion, and even he didn’t know how to do what was happening right now.

Suddenly he could breathe again, and taking the letter off the dead woman’s coat, he opened it with trembling hands.

_Isn’t she beautiful, Mr. Jane?_

His heart dropped into his stomach and he backed away from the closet.

“LISBON!” He yelled, stuffing the letter into his pocket. “LISBON!”

It seemed years before he heard her footsteps on marble and then wood. Then she was running down the hallway towards him, and for the briefest of seconds, he felt a surge of affection for the worry he saw in her face. He met her halfway and grasped her shoulders.

“Don’t look, Lisbon, not yet,” he said breathlessly.

“Jane?” He could hear confusion and fear in her voice. “What’s wrong? Tell me!” She tried to pull away and look over her shoulder but he grasped her chin and jerked it back.

“Please, Teresa.”

Her green eyes flew to his, and right then, more than anything, he was grateful that they were green and sparkling with life—not dead like those of the woman behind him.

“Just remember, everything is going to be okay,” he said softly, letting his hand slip from her chin. “Don’t be frightened.”

Then placing his hand in the small of her back, he led her over to the closet. “Don’t be frightened,” he whispered again, not realizing the words were more for himself than for her.

When she saw the woman her eyes went wide and all the blood drained from her face. “Jane, what—?” she stammered in confusion. Then she made a strangled noise and did something he had never seen her do: she fainted, eyes rolling into the back of her head as she crumpled towards the floor. 

Reacting from instinct, he caught her under her arms and hauled her up against him, her small breasts pressing against his chest and her face resting in the crook of his neck.  
He stood very still, feeling her breath on his skin and her warm body pressed against his. Goose bumps scattered across his arms and something stirred deep inside him….something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

 _Curious,_ he thought—but before he could dwell more upon it, he heard footsteps and a few moments later he was joined by both Rigsby and Cho, who, when they saw their unconscious boss in Jane’s arms, came to an abrupt halt. Rigsby looked up from Lisbon, uncertainty written all over his face.

“Erm…Jane—?”

At a loss for an explanation, Jane said the first thing that came to his mind:

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

Cho looked up into the closet and his face paled. “Jesus Christ,” He whispered.

Rigsby's eyes followed Cho's and his skin took on a green tinge. He opened his mouth, and closed it again, words failing him.

They all they stared up into the dead face of Teresa Lisbon.


	3. The Likeness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title and plot points gleefully borrowed from Tana French's, "The Likeness."

It was dark behind her eyes and off in the muffled distance Teresa heard voices she recognized—angry, frightened voices. 

She felt a breeze and caught a whiff of lilac scented perfume. 

_Grace..._

“There was no way to keep her from seeing eventually.” She recognized Jane as his voice drifted from the other side of the room. “How was I supposed to know she would faint?”

 _Faint?_ She thought, struggling to remember through the fog in her mind. She had never fainted in her life. That was something that only happened in the Harlequin romances her mother used to read. 

“You should have warned her,” Van Pelt said fiercely, her voice coming from above. “No one should have to see that...it’s so…awful!”

And then she remembered with an icy punch to the gut: 

The woman in the red coat…the woman who wore her face hanging from her neck in the sacristy.

She felt sick with fear—a fear she hadn’t experienced since she was a child and her father would get black out drunk and—

“Hello Teresa.” A sweet voice cut through the horror the past, and a pretty girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes appeared in front of her. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Who are you?” Teresa mumbled. She tried to sit up, but her limbs were heavy and limp and she could feel panic rising within her. 

“It’s alright,” the girl said soothingly, placing her cool hand on Teresa’s forehead. Then she smiled, and a thread of familiarity tugged at her mind. 

“I know you,” Teresa whispered. “I know you.” But the girl was beginning to fade and the voices were getting louder. 

With the utmost gentleness she said, “Remember, Teresa…you are safe, you are loved—” 

“Lisbon?” Jane’s face broke through the shimmering image of the girl and she was gone. Jane was hovering above her, a tense look on his face. He hadn’t shaved that morning and there was a golden shadow across his face.

“Jane,” she said groggily. 

“You were mumbling in your sleep.” There was a stiffness in the tone of his voice that cleared the fuzziness from her brain and she opened her eyes fully.

“Again?” She tried to remember what she had been dreaming about but it had already slipped out of reach. “What did I say?” 

“You don’t remember what you dreamed?” he asked urgently, gripping the back of a chair so hard his knuckles turned white.

“No,” she said. “I thought I—I can’t remember anything.” The look of disappointment on Jane’s face was both irritating and worrying. 

“I didn’t hear anything,” Van Pelt said, sitting on the couch next to her. “But it doesn’t matter.” She glared at Jane but he only ignored her.

“In whose office are we?” Teresa asked, realizing she didn’t know her surroundings. There was a large ornate desk across from her and a large crucifixion hanging on the wall behind it. The walls were lined with bookshelves overflowing with religious texts and scholarly journals. She was sitting on a worn red velvet horsehair sofa and the single window looked out over the cathedral grounds towards the rectory.

“The office of the Priest in Residence…uh,” Van Pelt looked down at her notes. “His name is Miles O’Flannigan. Jane carried you in here.”

Teresa felt her cheeks flare. “Well, we should thank him for his courtesy.” She chanced a glance up at Jane but he was scanning the bookshelves, running his finger over the tops of the volumes. 

“It’s alright, boss,” Van Pelt said. Her voice was sympathetic but her voice betrayed the apprehension she felt. “You suffered quite a shock—it could have happened to anyone.”

"You were quite graceful, if I may add,” Jane said focusing his attention on them. His lips were turned up in a slight smile. “Kind of a—" he twisted his body in imitation— "right into my arms."

"I get the picture, Jane," she said sarcastically, hoping the flush in her cheeks would go ignored. 

“Are you sure? Because I could probably get Grace to demonstrate for you.” 

“I don’t think so,” Van Pelt said primly, placing her hand on Teresa’s arm. It was warm, comforting. The familiar musty incense smell of the cathedral and of Grace’s perfume triggered something inside her and Teresa suddenly felt small.

“The woman…” she faltered. “Do we know who she was?” There was a tremble in her voice to her dismay. She didn’t want to be seen as weak…not in front of her team…and especially not in front of Jane. 

Jane took her hand between his own and held it lightly. She could feel the softness of his palms, the gently pressure of his fingers on hers and she looked up at him. The disappointment was gone, replaced by genuine reassurance. A pang of despair struck through her chest at his touch and then it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“We don’t know,” Van Pelt said quietly. “Wayne and Cho are working on it.” 

As if summoned, it was that moment that Rigsby and Cho entered the office. Rigsby had a pinched look about his face and Cho—

“Hey, boss,” Cho said in his usual emotionless tone.

“You alright?” Rigsby asked. His forehead wrinkled in concern and she felt a wave of affection for both of them.

“I’m fine,” she answered in a brisk tone that didn’t match how she felt. “Any updates…I.D’s?”

"Not for the victim in the pool," Cho said grimly, flipping through his notepad. "Partridge has taken both bodies to the morgue to perform the autopsies. I told him to put a rush on it." There was a brief moment of heavy silence before he continued. “When he removed her coat, he discovered that her intestines, stomach, liver...they had all been removed...he thinks she was alive when it occurred." 

Van Pelt gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Teresa felt her stomach drop. They often were witnesses to the aftermath of terrible and horrific deaths, but there were no words for this kind of brutality. Something stirred in the back of her mind…a memory from something she’d seen or read long ago…but it was gone before it was even there and she was left with the uneasy feeling of déjà vu.

Cho cleared his throat. “Er…they’re calling her doppel-Lisbon...”

"What?!” Teresa snapped out of her reverie and turned to him. “D—doppel-Lisbon!?”

“I didn’t make it up, boss,” Cho said quickly. “The tech team started calling her that instead of Jane Doe.”

“It’s…catchy,” Jane said with a touch of wry humor. “Who wouldn’t want a doppel-Lisbon? They’re rather useful crime fighters.”

His attempt at humor (the second that day already, she noted) didn’t work and she retorted, "Not when they're dead!" She glared at him hard, and immediately wished she hadn’t because her head throbbed in protest. 

"We have an ID on her," Rigsby said handing Teresa the small plastic card that served as a driver’s license.

_Olivia Elizabeth Davis, DOB 4/28/79, eyes: green, hair: brown…_

Teresa felt the blood drain from her face as the ID slipped from her hand to the floor. The throbbing in her temples worsened and she pressed her fingers against them to find a release. 

"What is it, Lisbon?” Jane asked immediately. “You’re white as a sheet.” 

"That's not possible," she tried to say in a normal voice, but it came out as a whisper. 

“What isn’t?” He sounded worried now. “Teresa, tell me!”

‘It can’t be possible because she—she doesn’t exist!” she blurted out. “She’s not real! Olivia Davis was a name I used in an undercover job back when I was in the SFPD, so she can't possibly exist in real life….she’s me!”

A stunned silence followed. 

“She’s me…” she mumbled closing her eyes and sinking back into the couch. “Bosco and I created her.”

No one said anything. She opened her eyes to find Jane watching her closely, a strange look on his face. It was unnerving to sit there feeling his blue eyes on her in such a way that she felt raw and exposed.

“But if these murders were committed by Red John as you suppose, what does it mean?” Van Pelt asked, her eyes widening. “Why would he hang a woman who looks like Lisbon who is living under an assumed identity she created?"

"Because this is personal,” Jane said softly, still watching Teresa. She finally looked back and held his gaze feeling defiant. His eyebrows knitted together and he tilted his head. He was studying her, but she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to discover.

“Personal?” Rigsby asked, interrupting her thoughts. “But that means—”

“Don’t!” Teresa interrupted him loudly, jumping to her feet. “Don’t say it!”

Cho and Rigsby exchanged a glance no one but Jane saw—and none of them noticed when Jane slipped his hand inside the pocket of his blazer to reassure himself the note he had found on the doppelganger’s coat was still there. 

“Cho, get the priest to CBI and interview him,” Teresa ordered angrily. “I need a drink or an aspirin. I’ll let you know which by whether I show up at the office or not!” She headed for the door, Jane on her heels. 

She walked down a hallway not knowing exactly where she was going. She felt Jane’s hand grip her arm and she whirled around in fear and anger. When she saw his lined, drawn, face the anger melted away and her shoulders sagged.

“Teresa,” he said in a low, gentle voice. “Are you alright?”

She closed her eyes and felt the sudden urge to cry.

No. She would not cry. She could not.

“I have a headache.” Her voice cracked in betrayal, but the tears stayed in the back of her throat. 

“Well then, you certainly don’t need a drink.” He let go of her arm and she opened her eyes. There was a hint of the old twinkle there.

“Do you still think it's Red John?” She asked pushing the tears far back down where they belonged, willing her voice to return to normal.

The hard look in his eyes confirmed it before he even spoke. “I found something,” he said. “Before I called for you.” 

“What is it?” Her mouth dried out and her heart thudded against her chest. 

He pulled a small wrinkled piece of paper out of the pocket of his blazer and handed it to her. “It’s addressed to me,” he said quietly, not meeting her gaze. 

She opened the note.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Mr. Jane?” She read aloud. Her eyes snapped to his in confusion. “This is about me? I don’t understand.”

Jane sighed. “He knows you are my friend…probably the only one I have. If he uses you, he knows he can get to me.” He sighed again, his eyes sliding to the window where outside the oak tree had turned red and yellow, and a sparrow chirped in the morning sunlight.

“He’s already tried that,” she pointed out. “What makes him think it’ll work now?”

“Before he was testing me, but now he knows I won’t become one of his followers. This is direct…there is no Lorelei to negotiate for him now. This is between him and me.”

“And me,” she retorted, stung. “Don’t forget that, Jane!”

“Yes,” Jane replied absentmindedly as though he hadn’t even heard her outburst. “When do you want to tell the others?”

“Later,” she replied stiffly, putting the note away in her own jacket. “After Cho interviews the priest and we have more proof than just a note with no signature and no smiley face.”

She shivered involuntarily, chilled by the thought that Red John had focused his attention on her again, and the movement must have caught Jane’s eye because he looked away from the window at her. 

“What?” she asked, still irritated at his indifference. “Because we need to—”

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything about what you were dreaming of before?” he asked hesitantly. "Nothing at all?"

“No,” she replied with a sigh. “Why is it so important, Jane? What did I say?”

He hesitated. “It’s nothing. Just something I’ve heard before.”

“What—

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he admitted suddenly. “When I opened the door, for a split second I was sure it was you, and I—” he broke off and smiled, his eyes crinkling. “Anyways…let’s get you that aspirin.”

And before she could protest, he took her arm and steered her out into the sanctuary where the sun shone through the stained glass windows onto the bloody water and the white sheeting that covered the crime scene.

A lone crow that had managed to escape capture silently watched them leave from his perch atop the crucifixion of Jesus Christ hanging from the ceiling. When he was sure he was alone, he swooped down, drawn by the smell of blood and perhaps the promise of something tasty to eat. He poked around the pews and discovered wedged between a bible and a hymnal, the dead woman’s other eyeball. 

Letting out a caw of delight, he picked it up and flew back to his perch where he settled down to feed.


	4. Of Fear

Teresa had drunk to much the previous afternoon, evening, and into the wee hours of the morning, and now she was in a spectacular mood.

She had already bitten off Cho’s head and cried into her morning coffee when she thought no one was looking. And Patrick, having frightened the priest O’Flannigan into telling him what his first thoughts were when he saw the body and almost causing him a panic attack, had been banned from the interrogation room and sent to his couch where he now lay, his fingers interlaced over his stomach, eyes closed. It looked like he was sleeping but in reality he was processing, categorizing, exploring the facts, all the things he did best in solitude.

The priest had been younger than Patrick had expected him to be, with red hair and blue eyes. 

“I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies,” O’Flannigan had said. “I’ve seen boys with stab wounds or riddled with bullets. We see a lot of funerals from violent death here…mostly from the street gangs…the Nortenos...It was the smell that I noticed first, like metal. Then I noticed the sound of the baptismal font…or rather the lack of it. It didn’t sound normal, but…thick…like syrup. I thought maybe someone had gotten in. That was when I saw her—what was her name again?” 

Her name had been Lina Lewis. 

Patrick knew O’Flannigan wasn’t guilty. He had been informed of the body in the communion closet and Jane had wanted to know what he thought about the style of murders. But Patrick had not gotten much information from him, because Teresa had stormed in and ordered him to the couch, which he had done willingly for fear she would hit him.  
She was angry and frightened and he didn’t blame her one bit. 

And then there was the whole bit about her knowing what he used to tell his daughter before she fell asleep at night. He had never told her, so he couldn’t figure out how she had known. And that she didn’t remember what she said was all the more strange and frustrating. 

It wasn’t like before, when she had mumblingly confessed that she was in love while they had been hiding behind the kitchen counter of the abandoned house waiting. He had an inkling it was about him, but had been unable to tell her for fear she would pull away from or worse, deny it had even been about him.  
This was different. And he didn’t know what to do about it. 

Grace watched the emotions flicker over Jane’s face as he lay across the room from her. Something was going on inside him she could not understand, and yet she knew it was not good. He had the ability to color the atmosphere around them that no one else did, and what she sensed made her uneasy. Letting out a sigh, she turned back to her computer.  
A moment later Teresa stalked out of her office slamming the door shut behind her. 

“Jane!” 

“What?” He asked, not opening his eyes. 

“We let O’Flannigan go,” she said flatly from above him.

“Yes,” Patrick answered, cracking open one eye. “He’s not guilty.”

“Well forgive me if I needed more than just your word,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. The buttons at her breasts strained slightly in their button holes and he got a glimpse of her bra beneath.

He pointedly ignored that and sat up, meeting her eyes.

“Alright, then, did you get any information out of him? Perhaps his first impressions, like I was trying to do before you kicked me out of the room?”

She glared at him and then sighed, anger draining away leaving her looking exhausted.

“He mentioned that her death looked rife with religious symbolism. The blood, the wine, the lacerations…”

Patrick got to his feet and began to pace, not noticing when Lisbon stepped back out of his path.

“And the crows,” he murmured under his breath. “The crows were guarding her.”

“What did you say?” Lisbon asked suddenly

“What?” He stopped and looked at her. “Crows.”

“You said they were guarding her.” Her voice was sharp. 

“Yes,” he continued. “Their behavior was territorial. Something that crows and ravens are intelligent enough to do, but they have to be trained, which means that Red John or someone close to him must have access to the church.” 

He clapped his hands together.

“We have to get access to a list of parishioners, employees, anyone who has access to the church, regardless of keys, though that’s a good place to start.”

“I’ll get Grace on it,” Lisbon said impatiently, shaking her head, her brows drawn together in puzzlement.

“What’s wrong?” 

She looked at him in surprise. “Oh. It’s just when you mentioned the crows I got a nagging feeling in the back of my brain, trying to tell me something…something to do with this case.”

“Really?” He asked in surprise as they walked toward her office. “About crows?”

“Yeah,” she said absently. “About crows…”

Once inside her office, he sat down on the couch and she began to search the internet, chin on one hand, the other clicking away at the mouse. He watched her silently until he grew bored and went to make some tea. Some ten minutes later he heard her call his name, and went back into her office to find her hunched over the computer, eyes scanning the screen.

“Jane, it’s the death of Saint Vincent,” she said calmly, but he could hear the thread of excitement in her voice. “According to the index of martyred saints, he was burned with hot irons, just like our vic, and his body was said to have been guarded by ravens after he died to prevent vultures from eating his body. He didn’t drown…” Suddenly her voice faltered.

“Teresa?” he asked quickly. “What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, he eyes wide with fear. “He was the patron saint of wine—”

“Which explains the wine and blood,” Patrick finished for her. “And--?”

She swallowed hard. “And of the city of Lisbon, in Portugal…”

She trailed off and sat back in her chair.

Patrick’s heart thumped loudly in his ears. “That’s it.” He said quietly. “That’s the connection. You, the doppelganger, and the call girl.”

“But what does it mean!?” She burst out, slamming her fist down on her desk. “Why me? What is he trying to say? Why has he suddenly changed his MO? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Patrick looked into her frustrated eyes and felt his throat tighten. “I really don’t know,” he replied. 

The lie slipped out so easily…as they usually did.

“But I think you need to be careful,” he finished lamely. 

She scoffed, but didn’t deny it like usual. 

“I’m going to get lunch,” he said offhandedly. “Want me to bring you anything?”

“You’re hungry?” she practically squeaked out. “After this?”

“A man’s gotta eat,” he called over his shoulder as he walked out of her office. He could hear her sigh all the way from the elevator.  
He went to Paesano’s and ordered a slice of cheese. He sat by the window and ate as he sorted and organized all the information he had gleaned. 

First and foremost, everything included Lisbon—the death of both women—one her doppelganger, the other, a prostitute murdered in the vein of the patron saint of her surname.  
As frightening as this was, he had to admit he found the doppelganger fascinating. 

She wasn’t supposed to exist, this woman….and yet she did. Where did Red John find her? This woman that looked almost exactly like Lisbon with an identity she created out of thin air. Did he create her? Manipulate her into doing what he wanted and then killed her for her loyalty? If that was the case, the poor woman probably hadn’t even had a chance. 

Red John knew that Teresa Lisbon was Patrick’s soft spot, his weakness. Their friendship seemed to work even when he did everything under the sun to test it. No matter how badly he abused her position or manipulated her, she remained unwaveringly faithful.

He grimaced to himself.

He knew it was only a matter of time before Teresa came to her senses and let him fall off the cliff they were so precariously balanced on. She was an attractive woman and intelligent for an average person. He knew someday one of them would let go first, and he had the niggling feeling that it would be her...  
By asking for Teresa’s head in a box, and his inability to deliver, Red John knew where to hit Jane where it hurt. 

And it would hurt. It would hurt a lot.

He took one last bite of his pizza and went out to his car where he sat for a brief, despairing moment before starting the engine and heading back towards the CBI office.


End file.
